This company is mad at the $2 billion year-end award! US$1.3 million per capita

2018 Nian On December 20th, US tobacco giant Altria Group (NYSE:MO) spent $12.8 billion to acquire a 35% stake in e-cigarette startup JUUL Labs, which raised the valuation of JUUL Labs to $38 billion. As part of the agreement, JUUL Labs' 1,500 employees can receive $2 billion in prize money from the Altria Group, averaging about $1.3 million per person. This bonus will be paid in the form of a special dividend. It is reported that this remittance has been remitted to the account of JUUL Labs and will be distributed to employees.

图自网络

A person familiar with the matter said that the exact amount of bonuses for JUUL Labs employees depends on a number of factors, including the time of the company and the number of shares held.

The founder of JUUL Labs, 43-year-old Adam Bowen and 38-year-old James Monsees, became the first batch of e-cigarettes Millionaire.

According to Bloomberg News, Bowen and Monsa controlled a 5.6 percent stake in JUUL Labs after a round of financing in July 2018. At that time, the two people held a share of 843 million US dollars per person. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the two founders currently retain a 3.6% stake in the company, and the shareholding amount reached $1.36 billion per person. This deal with Altria Group made JUUL Labs valued at $38 billion, surpassing SpaceX and Airbnb.

For this transaction, Bloomberg analyst Ken Shea analyzed that e-cigarettes are a disruptive technology that shows the direction of consumers. The development of e-cigarettes is so fast that cigarette companies like Altria need to find a way to reduce the use of cigarettes and consider the future of the company.

Bohn and Monsa developed entrepreneurial ideas while pursuing a master's degree at Stanford University and created Ploom in 2007. Eight years later, they sold the company's name to Japan Tobacco and renamed their company Pax Labs. In June of the same year, Pax Labs introduced a U-shaped e-cigarette called JUUL. In 2017, JUUL Labs was separated from PAX Labs as an independent company. After independence, James Monsa and Adam Bowen served as chief product officers and chief technology officers of JUUL Labs and served as board members.

JUUL is currently the most popular e-cigarette product in the United States, with a stylish appearance. It looks like a U disk, with eight flavors such as mint, tobacco, mango and caramel pudding, especially sought after by teenagers. As of October 2018, sales of JUUL e-cigarettes accounted for more than 70% of the US e-cigarette market. Since April 2018, JUUL's market share in the United States has increased by 10 percentage points.

Although it is an electronic cigarette, JUUL's nicotine content is not low, and its nicotine content is higher than most electronic cigarette products on the market. Each JUUL cigarette (JUULpod) has a nicotine content of 5%, or 59 mg/ml, and each cigarette core can be used for about 200 suctions.

Pax Labs' R&D engineers revealed that the original intention of JUUL was not to produce a smoking cessation product. In April 2018, the US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb also said that nicotine in JUUL is enough to cause addiction.

JUUL Labs is currently planning to expand its sales market globally. In May 2018, JUUL began selling in Israel. However, due to public health considerations, Israel has banned JUUL sales in August 2018 on the grounds that JUUL's nicotine content is nearly three times higher than Israel's recommended 20 mg/ml.

The other key player of the deal, Altria Group, is one of the world's largest tobacco producers and the owner of the Marlboro cigarette brand, headquartered in Virginia, USA.

Ochiya was born out of tobacco giant Philip Morris. In 2003, in order to cover up the negative impacts related to the tobacco business and to sculpt the reputation of “health killer”, Philip Morris officially changed its name to Altria Group.

In recent years, Altria’s tobacco sales have been declining. In search of a new market growth point, Altria acquired a 45% stake in Canadian cannabis production and distributor Cronos Group (NASDAQ: CRON) for $1.8 billion in early December 2018, the first in the history of the cannabis industry. Two major transactions.

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